For those of who are unfamiliar with Ignite, it features an animated 5 minute talk against the backdrop of advancing PowerPoint slides, one slide every 15 seconds.

The talk was grouped with a bunch of sessions, and although, on first glance, the educational topics are broad and dissimilar, afterward, with discussion from the listeners and with each other, we were able to find linkages and create a conversation around postsecondary student issues, from student success and engagement initiatives, to the pressures of tailoring education to the vagaries of a volatile job market.

My talk framed many of the issues that I have been blogging (and tweeting) about, namely the psychology of success but framed with attention to various social determinants, including gender, social class, radicalization, among others. Briefly, I argued that Angela Duckworth’s notion of grit and Carol Dweck’s notion of mindset needs to be squared with the social contexts and inequities in which all learning and engagement is ignited.